Speeches

I stand here 100 days after I took office as High Representative and EU Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. And I stand before you - the highest democratic body in Bosnia and Herzegovina - 100 days before you will be held to account by the citizens of this country in the October elections.

As all of you are well aware, Microsoft Corporation announced in late February the opening of a branch office in BiH. One of this new office’s core tasks will be to help boost the number of BiH software engineers trained in Microsoft technology, from 400 to 1200. The company also claims that its renewed focus on the BiH market can produce an astoni [...]

I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to take part in today’s discussion. The members of the BiH Diaspora are directly affected by many of the issues which all of us in BiH are working to resolve, and at the same time members of the Diaspora have a distinct and important contribution to make – in terms of ideas, experience and resources – [...]

It’s a pleasure to be here, particularly because the recent performance of your industry justifies optimism about the prospects for the BiH economy as a whole – on two counts

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to you today. This is a crucial time in the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the country moves from the Dayton framework into a structure established and owned in BiH and oriented towards Euro-Atlantic structures. And at the core of this process is an evolving and vibrant parliamentary cultur [...]

This is the first time I have the honour of addressing the Security Council as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am particularly pleased to be here alongside the Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers, Adnan Terzic. This reflects my role in BiH today – a partner alongside the Bosnian authorities.

Let me begin by sharing with you three of my passions! I am a skier, a hunter and a hiker. Over the years I have had the good fortune to follow wilderness trails through some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes – including the American Rockies and the Appalachian Trail that parallels America’s East Coast.

When I spoke to this group a year ago I drew attention to “a transformation that will affect this country well beyond the immediate confines of its military establishment” and I said that the officers participating in the Peace Support Operations Training Centre were at the “cutting edge” of this transformation.

As you know, the Political Directors of the Peace Implementation Council Steering Board have just concluded their first meeting of the year here in Vienna – this was also the first Political Directors’ meeting that I have chaired as High Representative. Tomorrow I will brief the EU’s Political and Security Committee in Brussels. I believe it is abs [...]

Why are anniversaries important? Anniversaries bring us together to remember those events to which we give importance – the birth of a person, an institution, a nation, or in this case – the District Brcko.